Leader: Let us praise God, who gives living water, through which the faithful flourish. People: Like trees planted by the water, God, are those who trust in you. Leader: Like trees with deep roots a...
God’s love for the vulnerable is beautifully portrayed in the beloved animated classic A Charlie Brown Christmas . The climactic moment, when Linus walks into the spotlight with his blanket and r...
Leader: Trusting in God’s tender mercy, let us confess our sin to God with one another. All: Gracious God, We confess the darkness and cold in our lives. Like barren trees in winter, we d...
God in heaven, you have helped my life to grow like a tree. Now something has happened. Satan, like a bird, has carried in one twig of his own choosing after another. Before I knew it he had built a d...
Leader: Then let us wait for the Lord, and in this season of Lent, let us wait by the cross. "Ascribe to the Lord, glory and strength." Glorify God's holy name. People: We worship the L...
Jeremiah 17:7-8, John 15:4-5, Matthew 23:27-28, Isaiah 58:11, Ezekiel 36:26-27
Every year at the end of November, my husband, Ike, and I load the kids in the car and drive to the nearest Christmas tree lot. We are committed “real tree” people—not to be confused with “fake tree” ...
At start of spring I open a trench in the ground. I put into it the winter’s accumulation of paper, pages I do not want to read. Again, useless words, fragments, errors. And I put into it the contents...
Leader: "A great crowd had come to the feast. When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet him, and cried out," People: ...
Isaiah 9:6-7, Micah 5:2-4 , Jeremiah 23:5-6, Luke 2:8-14 , Matthew 2:1-12 , Psalm 96:1-3
We know instinctively that Christmas is more than shopping mall Santas, silver bells, and snow-flocked trees, but such things are so entangled with our impressions of Christmas that it’s hard to kn...
Psalm 25:4-5, Matthew 1:23, James 5:14-15, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Luke 2:10-11, Isaiah 9:6, Jeremiah 29:11, Matthew 25:35-36, Proverbs 21:1, Matthew 5:14-16, Matthew 28:19-20, John 14:13, Luke 2:1-20, Mark 5:25-34, John 11:17-44
Gracious and faithful God–our Creator, Redeemer and Comforter: When we don’t know the way–You show us the way; and when we can’t find a way–You make a way. Thank you! Thank you for Your gift of a Sav...
The premier personage of Advent is John the Baptist. When he appears on the banks of the Jordan, the cover-ups come to their appointed end. Two thousand years before all the Watergates, Irangates, a...
John 1:5, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Matthew 5:10-12, Isaiah 61:3-4, Romans 8:35-37
Living rooms and shop windows aren’t the only places where decorations are meaningful features of Christmas. When Iraqi forces expelled the Islamic State from the predominantly Christian city of Mosul...
Tell me dear tree on which my Lord, my blessed Lord did hang, How could you hold the spotless Lamb, be party with the gang? That cheerless day, that shadowy hour, my blessed Savior died, to free my so...
A few years ago, some friends suggested creating a wilderness rock garden as a visual reminder of the Lenten season. I loved the idea and continue to use it year after year. USING YOUR WILDERNESS ...
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The d...
John 1:14, Hebrews 11:10, John 14:2-3, Psalm 90:1, Hebrews 13:14, Luke 2:1-10
Home shall men come To an older place than Eden And a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star; To the things that cannot be and that are, To the place where God was homeless...
“It seems, then,” said Tirian, smiling himself, “that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places.” “Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than it...
Luke 2:6-7, Isaiah 53:2, Matthew 2:1-2, Philippians 2:6-8, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
If you lacked simplicity, how then should this fall to you that midnight skies are a shine with? God, who stoked at men mild in you now comes to mortal eyes. That he’s not more great—does this surpris...
The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you ...
Updated for Advent 2025 It may surprise many to learn that Advent wreaths are a fairly new tradition, only dating back to the 19th century. But it provides a powerful way to connect with your congre...
Leader: "Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations. From everlasting to everlasting, You are God." People: But in comparison, the days of our life on this earth are but a ...
Note: Use this prayer throughout Advent to create consistency across the weeks, replacing the theme (Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love), depending on the week. Reader: In this season of longing and anticip...
Reign and Rain down, Glorious One Salvation flows from your side Living water to our desert to our frail clay to our dust Creation flows from you New life springing up Hope and wholeness Budding and ...
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, Or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, Or weighed the mountains on the sca...
Luke 1:32-33, Isaiah 9:6-7, Psalm 139:13-14, Luke 2:9, Matthew 2:11
The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom. So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains. Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching hi...